


i'll cover you

by dicaeopolis



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Other, Post-Canon, god I haven't used that tag in years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 05:21:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12834186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dicaeopolis/pseuds/dicaeopolis
Summary: Akaashi is grey today.





	i'll cover you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [decidueye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/decidueye/gifts).



> for raleigh. title is from rent, bc i'll cover you will always be a bokuaka song for me.
> 
> thanks to robin for lookin this over.

There aren’t always reasons for it. Some days they wake up and they’re grey.

Kuroo comes humming into the kitchen after his shower, toweling off his hair. His shirt is unbuttoned, and Akaashi can see the swirls of ink up his stomach and chest. “Good morning,” he announces as he breezes by. Kuroo is a morning person, to Akaashi’s vague disgust.

He tosses the towel onto the table next to them, sticks a straw into the pot of coffee and sucks down a long gulp. After he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, he asks, “Alright, what’s going on?”

Akaashi shrugs, watching their hands wrapped around their own mug of tea. “Nothing.”

Kuroo quirks an eyebrow at them and waits. They shift under his stare. 

“I - I mean it, nothing went wrong. Just an off day.”

“You gonna take class off?”

Akaashi shakes their head. “I have a quiz in Civic Law. I can’t miss it.”

“Konoha’s in that with you, yeah?”

Akaashi nods. “And International after that.”

Kuroo hums, satisfied. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“There’s not really much to talk about,” says Akaashi. But they talk anyway, as Kuroo leans back against the counter and sips his godawful black coffee. They clarify to him that it’s not a  _ bad _ day, because they know what those feel like - analyzing and over-analyzing and self-lacerating until they’ve convinced themself that their blessings are all a house of cards. On grey days, they get lost in their head, picking their way through the bare black skeletons of past bad days around them. It’s exhausting, and their tongue grows too heavy to talk, eyes too tired to react to what they see.

Akaashi can see out the kitchen window from where they’re sitting, and it’s grey out there, too. Overcast, even through Tokyo’s usual haze. The window would have a pretty spectacular view if it didn’t look out directly into the sea of skyscrapers towering around it. But, if they time it just right, they can catch the sunset through the buildings come evening.

They put their mug and Kuroo’s coffee pot in the sink. Bokuto has class right after morning practice, but there’s a scrawled yellow heart and some incomprehensible stick figures on the whiteboard on their fridge. Though they’d all grown up in the suburbs, the three of them drifted towards the heart of the city after high school - Bokuto following volleyball offers, Akaashi following academia, and Kuroo, who could’ve apprenticed just about anywhere with his talent for ink, following the two of them.

Kuroo’s studio is in the other direction from campus, but he walks with them to the law building anyway. He lingers at the door, smiling a ridiculously gooey smile at them til they find their seat next to Konoha.

Akaashi rolls their eyes at him as he turns to go. Konoha snorts quietly.

“You shut your mouth,” they mumble to him. Their professor is already handing out the quiz, so he doesn’t have time to respond.

They take the quiz. Their notes for the lecture are fragmentary and mostly nonsensical. Konoha watches their pen drift for about ten minutes, and then scribbles something in green pen on his notebook and slides it over to them.

_ I’ll sign you in for International Law after this. _

Akaashi sighs and scrawls a response.

_ You don’t have to do that. _

_ If I don’t, Yukie will. _

_ You don’t seem like you’d try very hard to stop her. _

_ You know how Yukie is. _

_ Is there anything I can say to change your mind? _

_ Nope. _

When they glance up to give him a dirty look, Konoha is grinning his narrow, sandy fox-grin at them. The professor can’t hear them this far back in the lecture hall, so he whispers aloud to them, “Take the day, Akaashi.”

* * *

They’re walking in the vague direction of their apartment when their phone buzzes.

_ from: Yukie, 1:07 p.m.  
_ do you want the notes from international today

_ to: Yukie, 1:09 p.m.  
_ That would be nice, thank you.

_ from: Yukie, 1:10 p.m.  
_ shared them with you on google drive

_ from: Yukie, 1:11 p.m.  
_ im coming over and we are going out for bubble tea. i am paying for it. they have one of those new flavors with pink boba.

_ to: Yukie, 1:12 p.m.  
_ Don’t you have Property Law?

_ from: Yukie, 1:14 p.m.  
_ not til 4 thats plenty of time

_ to: Yukie, 1:16 p.m.  
_ Then sure.

* * *

They pull up the course catalog after they get back. Property Law only has one section that meets today, and it’s at 1:30.

They wire Yukie a few hundred yen for the bubble tea. She paypals it back a few minutes later. Akaashi sighs, smile twitching at the corners of their mouth, and resolves to buy her a new pipe sometime soon.

* * *

When Bokuto gets home from class, later that afternoon, he’s in a rush - Konoha or Kuroo must’ve texted him. He’s already looking around as he kicks off his shoes by the doorway, and when he sees Akaashi curled up on the sofa, he hurries over. “Kaashi?”

“I’m okay,” they tell him, managing a small smile. It's true - they aren't in dire straits, after all. Just grey.

Bokuto hums in anxiety anyway, and rocks back and forth on his heels. His eyes are wide and golden. “Can I-” He gestures to the sofa beside them.

They shift over, and he drops down beside them, slings an arm around their shoulders and pulls their legs over his lap. His open concern squeezes unexpectedly at their heart, and they press their forehead into his chest. Their ear is right next to his heart, so they can hear the stutter in his breath, the unsure flutter of his fingers before his arms wrap tighter.

“I missed you,” they murmur, and it’s ridiculous, they went to bed together just last night, but-

Bokuto presses his lips against the top of their head and squeezes them tightly. They exhale, shuddery, as their tension drains.

When Kuroo gets home, not much later, they’re still like that. Akaashi’s face is buried in Bokuto’s pecs, but they hear him pause in the doorway.

“Dinner?” he asks.

“Yes, please,” Bokuto answers over their head. Akaashi can’t see yet, but they can imagine the wordless visual conversation between the two of them, always in sync. Kuroo’s steps move closer, and Akaashi feels a brush of fingers against their forearm, hears a soft kiss over their head. Then he’s heading towards the kitchen.

Kuroo is the only one of them who ever really learned to cook, so the kitchen is his territory. Bokuto’s fingers twine themselves between Akaashi’s, and together, they listen to the chopping and sizzling and Kuroo’s singing.

Not long after they moved in together, Kuroo brought home an old radio, the kind of antique with bunny ears that only work at one specific angle and still can’t pick up more than two or three stations. It’s on one of the kitchen shelves now, tuned to staticky old rock. Kuroo has always been a songbird, on colorful days and grey ones alike. He only knows stray snatches of the verses of this song, but he’s got the chorus down - something about meeting someone out past the moon.

He comes in a bit later with three plates of colorful vegetables balanced deftly on one arm, three glasses pinched between the fingers of the other. Slowly, Akaashi unfolds themself from Bokuto’s chest, already missing the steadiness of his breathing against their cheek.

“Good morning,” Kuroo greets them, for the second time that day. He puts down their plates and winks at Akaashi, who can't help the hint of a smile tugging at their mouth. “Hey there, hotshot.”

He sits down on their other side, links his ankle with theirs. As they eat, Bokuto rambles on about practice and classes, and Kuroo pulls up his Instagram to show them some designs he did that day - watercolors, splashes of violet and blue. Akaashi is quiet, but they manage a few sentences, and when they poke a wisecrack at Kuroo, a grin sparkles across his face.

It’s not until after dinner that Kuroo snaps his fingers and reminds them that they need to go grocery shopping. It’s getting late, but the store is open til midnight, so they head out together. The sidewalk is cracked and grey under Akaashi’s sandals, but the last of the sunset is golden and crimson and velvety purple over the late summer evening.

There’s nobody in the store besides one tired cashier, a spotty teenager who nods to them as they walk in without putting away her phone. The fluorescents are buzzing slightly, and the lights of the refrigerators are slightly surreal. The first aisle is frozen foods. Kuroo kisses them next to the one-dollar pizzas and the colorful ice creams, with his thumbs hooked into their belt loops, slow and lingering.

It’s only nine thirty, but Bokuto is already yawning from that morning’s early practice, so he isn’t much help with the shopping. Instead, he drifts around the store after them, fingers twisted around the hem of their cardigan. When Kuroo splits off to pick up rice, Akaashi heads to the produce section, and Bokuto wraps his arms around their waist and props his chin on their shoulder as they look at vegetables.

“Eggplant,” he suggests.

“We don’t need eggplant.”

“Cucumber.”

“Koutarou.”

“Mmm.”

He slouches a little, pressing his cheek into their angel bones. Akaashi reaches down to trace the thick muscle of his forearms, then turns it over in their hands, trailing their fingers along the veins of his wrist.

He makes a quiet noise against their shoulders. They can feel his slow, even breathing.

They twist their head to drop a kiss on the corner of his forehead. A tiny sigh of happiness.

Bokuto gives his love freely, unqualified, unconditional. Sometimes it's terrifying. Akaashi knows, objectively, that they have existed without Bokuto. But without him to take care of - without him taking care of them - they aren't sure how they'd manage it again at all.

Suddenly, Bokuto squeaks. Judging by the direction of his jump and Akaashi’s knowledge of Kuroo, Kuroo has just slid a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and squeezed. Sure enough, there's a low chuckle, and then Kuroo’s pinky wraps around theirs. “Hey.”

“You're shameless,” they tell him, still studying the vegetables.

Kuroo holds up the basket with his free hand, gives it a shake. “Got the rice.”

Kuroo is a slippery, elusive creature. He conceals himself carefully behind smirks and wisecracks - Akaashi’s seen him brush off compliments and jabs alike with the same sardonic chuckle. His love was never unconditional, never unquestioned. When they first met him, he seemed untouchable.

And yet here he is, smiling down at them with his pinky linked around theirs, soft and unguarded under the late-night fluorescents.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
